Fox News Memo: 'Public Option' Sounds Too Friendly, Stop Using It

An August 2009 e-mail from Fox News' Washington managing editor, Bill Sammon, ordered reporters to drop the term "public option" for "government-run plan" during the health care reform debate. Could Fox News have a right-wing bias?

Sammon, a former Washington Times reporter, sent this memo to his newsroom, and got a reply from Fox's senior vice preisdent for news, Michael Clemente.

This is controversial because "public option" polled well, while "government-run plan" or "government-run health insurance" fared worse. However it was said, this would have been an optional plan within a larger bill that preserved the private health insurance system. So the one that Clemente and Sammon settled on, "the public option, which is the government-run plan," is only outrageously inaccurate if the "option" was presented as either the "government-run plan" or another bill altogether. (And I'm sure they didn't bother explaining that the option would have been fully funded by premiums instead of by free taxpayer dollars.)